


Entanglement

by houseofthestars



Series: Two Lockets [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: (but magic again), Bottom Ferdinand von Aegir, Dirty Talk, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Phone Sex, Post-Black Eagles Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Sex Toys, The Porn Is the Plot, Top Hubert von Vestra, sort of. its still phone sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:55:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27160756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houseofthestars/pseuds/houseofthestars
Summary: “I had wondered if my suggestion to retain the locket after your trip to Dagda may have been a little… presumptuous.”Ferdinand huffs amusement in Hubert’s ears. “Ah, so that was the forward part of that whole exchange? Hubert, you truly are a man of the shadows, aren’t you. So bold when we are at distance and so evasive in proximity.”
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Series: Two Lockets [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1982537
Comments: 32
Kudos: 177





	Entanglement

**Author's Note:**

> This is a follow up to Two Ends of a Cord, the first in this series. The specifics of the setup might not make much sense without having read the first, but you can probably enjoy the porn anyway.

Enbarr is often the first to receive the Garland Moon rains. They sweep over the city in angry little tempests, turning the skies from blue to black to blue again faster than an army could charge across Gronder Field, pulling the rain sideways and scattering newly grown blossom as quickly as it can grow.

It patters across the latticed windows of Hubert’s living quarters, a chaotic staccato compared to the rhythm that currently holds his attention. This one is a gentle, steady drum between his fingertips, relentless and vital even though the locket which it comes from contains no moving parts. It is the echo of a heartbeat, and with each steady twitch in Hubert’s hands it spells out an invitation.

The ship to Morfis left from Aegir territory five hours hence, with another seven until it will see land again. Ferdinand is too predictable for there to be a need for many contingencies at this stage. For one who had rarely sailed prior to taking office, Ferdinand seems to have found his sea legs remarkably quickly on his travels as Prime Minister. According to Hubert’s calculations for the journey so far, Ferdinand will have first stood upon the deck for an hour or two, proclaiming the many benefits of the sea air for one’s health. While doing so he will have asked many earnest and entirely irritating questions regarding the boat’s specifications, to any passing crew member he could flag down. Then he will have been politely encouraged below deck at the sight of a passing shower, and made himself comfortable with some measure of paperwork or a book from the palace library, falling into his own particular state of deep reverie that Hubert can only admire for its intensity. 

Ensconced thus until invited to dine, by Hubert’s own reckoning there is no need for Ferdinand to be monitored at all. And certainly there is no reason for Hubert to be sitting at the desk in his palace quarters, rolling the locket’s casing between thumb and forefinger, its silver chain around his neck.

And yet.

Months have passed since Hubert felt the trinket flutter against his collarbone in the night and realised what it meant: that Ferdinand’s pulse, hundreds of miles away with his own matching locket, had quickened. And not from fear, exertion, or anger, as the locket had been designed to monitor — but as a response to Hubert’s own words. From _arousal_. Hubert had never considered himself much of a slave to temptation, but he’d never been bound by copper curls before. Never had Ferdinand’s candidness focused upon him in such a devastating manner before that night. It had left him feeling almost pinned to his own sheets with the sudden strength of his own desire - and pinned so, in the end it had only taken one slip, one show of a chink in his armour. And in the end, Ferdinand had shucked Hubert open like a Brigid oyster.

Suggesting Ferdinand keep the locket had not been part of the plan either. He’d cursed his tongue for tripping over the words, and for weeks afterwards Hubert had felt too known, too seen, like something pulled from the shadows into unforgiving firelight. For weeks the locket had stayed silent, too - no pulse, no murmured inquiry after a late dinner. Discarded into a dresser drawer, perhaps, or tucked away in some box or other in Ferdinand’s ministerial townhouse in the opera district — Hubert has never visited, but he can imagine its disarray, if Ferdinand’s office in the palace is sufficient evidence. While the locket lay silent, Hubert found himself turning corners at the sight of Ferdinand at the other end of a corridor, or ducking through doors when Ferdinand entered a room. Obvious, probably, especially in the light of faintly narrowed glances thrown his way when avoidance had been impossible. Childish, undeniably. Nevertheless, the alternative had felt impossible to contemplate.

But now it beats again with the movement of Ferdinand’s blood, however many miles away. The man is unnecessarily capturing Hubert’s attention as per usual, and he is not even in the same country, let alone the same room. At least there, Hubert can argue the evidence of the man’s infuriatingly perfect nose and unnecessarily long eyelashes. That he does not even need to be present to distract Hubert just shows that Ferdinand von Aegir has showboating down to a fine art.

Obvious and childish, again. Hubert has already shown more of his hand to Ferdinand than he had ever planned to, or cared to, and the knowledge sticks in his throat. It would be far better to tuck the locket back beneath his collar, delve into work and push the whole thing from his mind until their duly scheduled briefing.

He is still debating his next step when he hears the faintest intake of breath curling at his ears. It’s faint — faint enough that he would have missed it had his attention been elsewhere. But it’s enough for his hand to still its motion, and for the hairs on the back of his neck to faintly prickle as if the breath had ghosted along his own skin.

He stills, listening intently, then presses the button at the top of the locket, popping the casing open. It remains quiet, and Hubert is at the point of dismissing it again before he hears, more distinctly, a clearing of a throat not his own.

“Ferdinand?” The word slips out before Hubert can chase it back down his throat, and he is inclined to curse his own foolishness again, until:

“Oh, Hubert. That was... impressively prompt of you. My apologies for the disturbance.”

Hubert lets the presumption pass by unchallenged. “Are you in need of my assistance?”

“Ah, no, no. All is well.”

“How goes the voyage?” 

A slightly breathless, exasperated laugh. “For now, it does not go, in fact.”

“Oh?”

“An unexpected squall trapped the ship in harbour. They cannot try the crossing again until the end of the week — something about the tides, or oceanic currents, they did explain but I cannot recall the exact terminology. In any case, I have returned to Enbarr in the meantime. There is more need of me here than in Aegir.”

Hubert leans back in his chair and crosses one foot over the other on the edge of his desk, nudging an empty coffee cup further towards its interior with his heel. “So you are not travelling? Are you at home? Or the palace?”

“Oh, at home, I could not quite face those draughty offices in the Ministry tonight. Worry not, I have plenty of paperwork with me as it is.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Hubert assures him wryly. 

The gentle beat of Ferdinand’s heart has quickened just slightly within the locket. “Anyway, I merely wished to let you know of my delay. Forgive me the imposition upon your time, I’m sure you’ve work of your own to get on with.”

“It is no imposition,” Hubert says. “Far from it.”

There’s a loaded pause, and then “Are you quite sure? Because I cannot help but feel you have been avoiding me, as of late.”

“What gave you that impression?” Hubert says. A transparent evasion, perhaps, but he’s buying time, trying to navigate a path through the conversation before it begins.

“Apart from the suddenly cancelled meetings, the case of coffee I haven’t opened for a month and the way you seem to scuttle out of whatever room I have entered like some, some… startled spider?”

“Spider? Not one of your more inspired similes,” Hubert tries, but Ferdinand pays it no mind.

“Do not try to play me for a fool, Hubert. I will not be diverted with such trifles.”

“Enough with the dramatic exaggeration, von Aegir,” Hubert grouses. Still, he supposes he owes Ferdinand a version of the truth - at least here he does not have to meet Ferdinand’s eyes, which otherwise might be fixed upon him, round as an injured animal’s. “I suppose I had felt a little... overly forward, in recent memory, so I thought to clear the air a little with distance.”

Ferdinand is quiet for a moment, and then: “Overly forward? In what respect in particular?”

There’s still some heat to the words, and Hubert’s instinct is to deflect again - start some new squabble, bite at a finger so that the toe is forgotten. The tactic is a little too reminiscent of their older arguments and Hubert has no desire to return to long gone days of uneasy, brittle truce. And worth consideration yet is the fact that Ferdinand — despite the postponed voyage, despite his return to Enbarr — has apparently been wearing the locket for as long as Hubert has been pondering it.

Very well. For the sake of Ferdinand’s pulse between his fingers: “I had wondered if my suggestion to retain the locket after your trip to Dagda may have been a little… presumptuous.”

Ferdinand huffs amusement in Hubert’s ears. “Ah, so _that_ was the forward part of that whole exchange? Hubert, you truly are a man of the shadows, aren’t you. So bold when we are at distance and so evasive in proximity.”

A memory runs apace across Hubert’s attention without permission or care for the consequence, and Hubert pulls his legs from the desk and places them back on the rug below him, as if to let whatever shiver has just passed through him seep out of his soles and dissipate. 

“You are the one who called this arrangement an opportunity for confession, if I recall correctly,” he ventures. “Allowing for honesty.”

“And you should also recall I did not refuse the locket’s return, so there has been no need for spider-scuttling,” Ferdinand says, pointedly, then sighs. “I suppose neither did I contact you on it either, though. Until now.”

“Until now,” Hubert echoes. “Here we are.”

There is a pause. The rain patters against Hubert’s windows.

“I never meant to imply that I didn’t—” Hubert starts to say, but Ferdinand is saying something as well:

“If confession is what is needed, then… I think often of it, you know.”

Hubert lets the rest of his own sentence die on his lips, and sits up a little in his chair.

“Oh?”

“Yes. That time in Dagda, the way your voice sounded.” A beat. “The way it does now, in fact.”

“You did say my voice had a way about it, if I recall,” Hubert says. “ _Scandalous_ , I believe was the word you used.”

“And you used it to your advantage quite skilfully,” Ferdinand agrees, carefully. “Though I like to think I did a rather good job myself.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Hubert says, and then before indecision can stay his tongue, he adds: “I think of it often, too. That night.” 

“You do?” 

Hubert flicks his tongue over a dry bottom lip. “I do. I haven’t come that hard in a long time.”

The boldness is worth it for the surprised intake of breath it receives in exchange. Hubert leans forward in his chair, as if this will somehow bring Ferdinand closer to him, as if it will be enough to let Ferdinand’s lips faintly brush his skin. He cannot help but consider the distance: no oceans divide them now. In fact, with Ferdinand in his townhouse and Hubert at the palace, they are no more than a walk of twenty minutes from each other. With enough determination, an ambitious mage could warp there. 

“Well, then,” Ferdinand says after a moment, thickly. “It seems it is easier to pull confessions out of you tonight than it was the last time.”

And there it is, along with the words - the sudden insistent adrenaline-thump of Ferdinand’s heart between Hubert’s fingers, just as he had felt it not so long ago. And just as before, the raw undeniable biology of it sings to Hubert’s own blood. 

“Perhaps, then, we have an understanding,” Ferdinand continues. “Though I’m rather enjoying this more candid Hubert, so this time I would have you be a little more forthcoming. Your role requires you to be a broker of information, yes? Perhaps we might conduct this as a trade.”

 _This time_ lingers in Hubert’s ears. “You should know better than anyone that my role is to keep more secrets than I give away,” he says. 

“Ah. Back to evading, that didn’t last long. Hubert, do you never tire of it?” There’s exasperation in Ferdinand’s voice, but amusement too. And something a little darker. “Let us get right to it, then. Do you wish to repeat the event or not?”

“I… yes. I cannot think of anything I would like more,” says Hubert, and it’s the most honest thing he’s said all day.

“Thank the saints,” Ferdinand says, more vehemently than Hubert might have expected. “So you accept my terms? A trade of information.”

“Yes, the terms are acceptable,” says Hubert. This part of their exchange is more reminiscent of the back and forth they have over a particularly thorny piece of legislation than any flirtation, which doesn’t explain why Hubert can feel his cock beginning to stir all the same.

“I knew nothing of your situation beyond where you were, last time,” Ferdinand says. “Tell me more. I am unlikely to have caught you abed, as before, so where are you?”

Hubert hesitates, looking around him. Hardly as exotic or exciting as a Dagda skyline. “I am at my desk in my quarters. There is little else to tell you.” 

Ferdinand makes a dismissive, disappointed sound. “I think you can do better than that.”

“What else would you ask of me?”

“Oh come now. You are an observant man, and one who can tell a story when you have the need. Paint me a picture as I did for you before.”

Hubert huffs, casts another look around. “Fine. Most of the candles are lit. I sit in my shirtsleeves, trousers and stocking feet with the fire low. Too much paperwork, not enough coffee.” 

A huff of amusement. “As per usual, then.”

“Yes, I’m sure you can imagine the sight perfectly well.” Hubert shifts, parts his thighs slightly. “Your turn, I believe.”

“Very well. I am in my parlour. You have never visited the townhouse, no? It is a little old-fashioned, this room, a little over-styled, though the seats are rather comfortable with it. A low fire, as your own. The rain against the window which I imagine you can also see. I think you would like the sight that I make— ah, if it is not too vain to say so, given the circumstances. Shirt unbuttoned, legs spread, a hand starting to rub between my legs.”

Hubert’s breath hitches. Had Ferdinand been in such a state of undress this entire conversation? As if his hands are compelled by Ferdinand’s own, he drags a palm along his own length through his trousers, finds his cock quick to respond. “I do like that. What are you thinking about?”

“You,” comes Ferdinand’s response, as quickly as Hubert asks, followed by, “Well. To be specific, I am wondering how you might react to such a sight, should you come across it in truth. Would you scuttle away again? Or would you linger?”

“You are asking what I would do if I were there in person? Right now?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Ferdinand says insistently. 

A dozen answers to Ferdinand’s question spring to Hubert’s lips all at once, all of them some version of a truth; he reaches for one of them.

“It would be much the same,” Hubert says. He applies a little more pressure, shivers in response. Toys with the buttons on his placket. “I would watch you touch yourself, as I listen now.”

Ferdinand makes a muffled sound. “You would watch me? Direct me?”

Hubert lets himself shiver again at the notion. “Yes. Ferdinand, to know that my words, my voice alone could arouse you, that time in Dagda — it was… intoxicating.”

“Saints,” Ferdinand breathes. “That you could take your pleasure merely from watching is a rather powerful thought. You do have quite a way of stirring me when you put your mind to it, you know.”

“Then tell me about it.” Hubert thumbs open his trousers. “Are you teasing yourself as you were in Dagda? Chest, stomach, hips? Or do you already have yourself in hand?”

“Mm,” Ferdinand says. “The touching, yes. Not in hand.”

“Are you hard?”

“Goddess, yes. But I was waiting, ah—” Ferdinand’s voice trips over itself here, stops short, and it takes a moment before Hubert realises how the sentence must end. When he does, it sends a jolt of desire through him.

“You were waiting for me to direct you to do so.”

“I. Yes.”

“That’s very good, Ferdinand,” Hubert says, with the faintest breathy tremor on the very good. “Take yourself out, now.”

A faint hitch of breath, the softest sigh, and Hubert knows Ferdinand has acquiesced.

You asked me what I liked to do, last time,” Ferdinand’s voice comes a little breathless, now, “I suited my description to the occasion. Alone, away from my usual creature comforts. As it were.”

“Oh? Does that mean you’ve more to tell?”

“If you have the time to allow me to indulge.”

“I have all the time in the world for your indulgence,” Hubert says. The words come out with a little more sincerity than he had aimed to pitch them, but Ferdinand thankfully seems too preoccupied for such things.

“In that case, some of those, ah… scandalous words wouldn’t go astray right now, if you were inclined. I wonder, while I do enjoy the notion of you watching, would you truly be so self-contained as I did this? Would you be content to sit at a distance as I strip?”

Hubert’s blood pounds in his ears as his imagination throws an image before him - Ferdinand, toying with clasps and buttons until he is naked, resplendent. Did he come out of the war as scarred as Hubert? Surely not, unsullied thing that he is. Surely instead of the purpled, spidery remnants of errant spells, Ferdinand is merely as dusted on freckles upon the rest of his skin as he is upon his face. Golden as he has ever been. And through it all, does that open locket, crafted and gifted by Hubert’s own hands, shine golden too, around his neck?

“You say this as if the watching is not pleasure itself,” Hubert says, trying to keep his voice level, his hand moving lightly on his cock. “I don’t doubt you’re quite a sight to behold right now, there’s no need to brag. Anyone would want to commit it to memory. Record it from hair to toe.”

“You’re quite the flatterer when you’ve amorous intentions, Hubert,” Ferdinand says, his voice more breathless still. “But do go on.”

“I’d want to see the shift of your tendons beneath your skin. The way muscle and sinew move, the way you breathe, the sweat on your skin,” Hubert says. 

“So anatomical.”

“You would be fascinating anatomy to study,” Hubert says, and then closes his eyes at such an awkward choice of words; Ferdinand, however, gives nothing but a faint, pleased noise in response.

“Tell me what you’re doing, Ferdinand,” Hubert demands, and Ferdinand gives another muffled sound.

“In time,” he replies. “I want to know something else from you, first. Are you still clothed?”

“Yes,” Hubert says simply.

“Touching yourself?”

“Yes.” 

A sound of satisfaction. “A much simpler question and answer than last time. You know, I am still not so sure I would want you to just sit there, if you could see me as I am— _ah_ —now.”

“That sounds like you know something that I do not,” Hubert says, choosing to duck the question in favour of more pressing concerns as he moves his hand upon his cock. It’s still only enough to tease himself, more for the chase of pleasure than for the capture, but Ferdinand’s words are enough to send another shiver of desire through him. 

“I rarely have the occasion for ah, this particular thing. I suppose I should thank you for that, at least,” Ferdinand says.

Hubert wipes a thumb idly over the head of his cock, slides wetness down the shaft. “For what, exactly?” 

“Something I bought in Derdriu a little while ago, I— hmm.” Ferdinand makes a nervous little huff of a sound. “It feels rather uncouth to describe it aloud, though I suppose I must for your benefit. It’s a rather elegant little thing in its own way. Glass, excellent craftsmanship. An… alternative to the company of men, you could say.”

“Oh,” says Hubert, and has to take his hand away from his own cock for a moment, take a breath. Two breaths. One for the knowledge that Ferdinand would possess such a thing, and another for the way _the company of men_ slips from his tongue. “Well, well. I can’t say I had imagined, ah—”

Ferdinand gives a little breathless laugh. “That I’d own something like this? I thought we were ‘adults, past the point of shame’, eh? I take it you... don’t similarly indulge, then.”

“Tell me what I would see,” Hubert presses again, urgently. “If I were there. Tell me what you’re doing.”

An amused hum. “I’ll need a moment to prepare. If you’ll permit me.”

Hubert could find this asking for his permission utterly addicting, if he was not careful. “Please do,” he says. 

“Mm,” Ferdinand says, and Hubert can’t tell if it’s acquiescence or a reaction.

“Keep talking, Ferdinand,” Hubert says after a moment, and there's a faint laugh at his impatience. 

“Very well. If you were here,” he says slowly, deliberately, “Instead of your dusty old quarters, you would— _hmm_ —see I have retired to my room rather than the parlour. A room fitted rather more in the current style, though I— _ah_ —did not have the heart to have the canopy taken down from above the bed, it’s such a—” Ferdinand gasps “—splendid fabric. A fire lit, which seems illuminating enough without the use for candles.”

“You are making fun of me,” Hubert accuses. 

Ferdinand’s laugh breaks into a moan. “I am merely— _ah_ —setting the scene, as ever.” Despite this, the sounds that punctuate Ferdinand’s words are more descriptive than any account of the decor and furniture. Hubert can practically see the faint amused smile on Ferdinand’s lips even as he continues to touch himself. Can imagine he has slicked up a finger, two fingers, is sliding them in and out of himself even as he still talks to Hubert.

“I am hardly going to be spurred to action in this hypothetical scenario if you keep directing my attention to the drapes instead of what your hands are doing.”

“So you would be ‘spurred to action’, then?” Ferdinand says, seizing his words as quickly as an Aegir hound.

“You are insufferable, von Aegir. Tell me what I want to know and maybe I’ll concede.”

Another huffed laugh. “I suppose the time for teasing is over, now that I am… suitably prepared. Very well. I’d like to think you’d be— _mm_ —sat upon the chaise at the foot of the bed. If you were, you would see me knelt upon the coverlet, nude, knees apart. Holding the toy as I make ready to fuck myself with it.”

The last sentence is crude, blunt, a dozen steps away from the coy verbal dance Ferdinand had undertaken to describe the thing in the first place. It knocks the air out of Hubert. He spits crudely into his palm, fucks up into it with more urgency. There’s a pause, only the sound of their mingled breathing in Hubert’s ears, and Hubert realises Ferdinand is waiting again - waiting for Hubert’s permission to advance.

“Yes,” Hubert says, almost senselessly, but Ferdinand understands it for the cue that it is, and Hubert shivers as he listens to Ferdinand’s long, drawn out sigh. It has him tightening his own grip on his cock without thinking, slowing his stroke, almost as if it was Hubert that—

“Oh, I’ve _missed_ this,” Ferdinand murmurs, almost to himself, and Hubert moans without thinking.

For a few moments Ferdinand seems lost in his own reverie, and Hubert is all too happy to indulge in it with him: the drawing of his breath, the shifting of his weight, other sounds only on the cusp of his hearing but enough to spin a dozen tales in Hubert’s imagination. He envisions the tense and flex of Ferdinand’s thighs as he sinks further down onto the glass, the sweat beading on his freckled hips, his hair sticking like copper spirals to the damp skin on his neck. It sends a pang of longing through Hubert that he cannot comprehend what to do with.

“So,” Ferdinand says suddenly, voice clear and cutting through Hubert’s thoughts even now, even with the faintest strain to it. “Would you still be watching, Hubert? Would you— _ah!_ —merely be studying my anatomy still?”

“I. Ah. I think it would be— hard to stay still at such a sight,” he admits. “Maybe I would find myself standing from the chaise. Coming closer. One knee upon the mattress, then the other. Inexorably drawn.”

Ferdinand merely makes a gasping noise at this, and so Hubert surges on, hand moving yet more insistently on his own cock: “Pulled towards you in a way I would find hard to resist. Wanting to touch those same places upon you that you told me about in Dagda. Feel the way you move under my fingers.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Ferdinand says desperately. “Please, Hubert, I want you to touch me.”

Hubert bites back his own strangled sound at this. “I would— scratch and pinch like you told me about, pull all those delicious noises I keep hearing out of you myself.”

“Yes,” Ferdinand says, both permission and encouragement, and Hubert keeps talking.

“I’d be watching, still, though, even as I touch you: watching you with that toy, watching you shiver and moan, I— Ferdinand, you must look glorious right now, fucking yourself and thinking of me.”

“I am, I _am_ thinking of you,” Ferdinand says raggedly. “Keep going.”

Hubert thinks of himself kneeling on the mattress, moving his hands across Ferdinand’s body, and he cannot hold back his moan this time, rucking his shirt upwards and dragging his free hand across his belly as he fucks his fist. “Then I would chase my touch with my mouth. Taste your skin.”

“I would like that,” Ferdinand gasps. “Please. I want to feel your tongue. Your teeth.”

Hubert moans. “Your body would move in such beautiful ways if I took you by the hair, Ferdinand, you would make such wonderful noises with my teeth against your neck—”

“Yes, yes,” Ferdinand says, and it’s a chant, in rhythm with his breath, surely in rhythm with the way he rides the toy inside him. “Bite and mark me, I want scratches— Hubert, I _knew_ you wouldn’t just watch if you were here. I knew you couldn’t just sit there. If you were here—”

“I would not deny you anything,” Hubert confesses, desperately. “Any of me.”

“I wouldn’t be fucking myself and thinking of you, if you were here, Hubert. _You_ would be - you’d—”

Ferdinand is not in Morfis, or Dagda, or even Aegir. Ferdinand is but streets away. A short walk, an ambitious warp. Across this short distance, alone in his mismatched townhouse, under his antique canopy: he is crying out for Hubert’s touch, his mouth. Just buildings away he is saying that Hubert is the one who should be inside him, and that is more than Hubert can stand.

“Yes, Ferdinand, it would be me, it _should_ be me, I need to be fucking you,” he says desperately, and he can feel himself tensing, his orgasm building. 

“Hubert, please, can I—” Ferdinand gasps, and Hubert can only grit out “Yes, Ferdinand, come for me—” before his own climax shudders through him.

—

Hubert should close the locket, he knows. Cut the line of magic that stretches across Enbarr between himself and Ferdinand, now that impassioned words have given way to half-nonsense murmurs of satisfaction. And then beyond that, to the pair of them retiring to their separate beds, the odd weary sentence, spoken aloud merely to share. And finally to now — to Ferdinand’s breathing evening out to a slow and gentle rhythm, his pulse within the locket steady and reassuring. There is certainly no reason for Hubert to keep the locket on at all, let alone keep listening.

He falls asleep to the sound of the rain against the windows, and the sound of Ferdinand: relentless and vital, streets away.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to Nuanta for the beta and all the screaming <3
> 
> You can find me on twitter at @hausofthestars but we keep things PG there.


End file.
